SOURCE: "Leonov's Early Prose" and "Re-evaluation of Values: Second Version of The Thief and Evgenia Ivanovna," in Leonid Leonov: A Critical Study, Arowhena Publishing Co., 1979, pp. 11-25, 181-90.

An educator, novelist, and critic, Harjan has written extensively on Russian literature. In the following excerpt, he surveys Leonov's early stories, discusses differences between the first and second versions of The Thief, and remarks on Evgenia Ivanovna.

Leonov stated that his entrance into literature began with a story called "Buryga" ("Buryga"); most editions of his collected works open with this short story. A great deal of effort has been spent in interpreting this fairytale-like miniature. Many scholars speaking about Leonov's early works pointed to his dependence on E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) and Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875), but few were specific about "Buryga." True, Buryga faintly resembles Hoffmann's "Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober," but it is not the borrowing of the plot, the...